8 comments:

The target audience is the audience of which the authors are aware, which seems to be those with attention span limits or time limits. The details are efforts that are missed by most, I think. They are probably just reading far too fast for that.

Also, a lot of the detail used in those is not easy to see in those examples (especially in the third example). I would daresay that the extra detail makes it even more difficult to read. The typical resolutions for common monitors is not even 200dpi, which common fax machines use. Antialiasing can only do so much. People will likely only scroll up and down online (if that) so one is still limited to widths.

I think those are the main reasons they dumb down the artistry (as well as the actual content) in many cases.

Yes. It would look neat, but I do not think it is all that practical, though. It would possibly be little more than a novelty in most online circles, and that is only if it did not cause the reader extra effort.

You could cut the top two rows of panels into one full screen sized page (ending at the moment when the meteor strikes the plane) - fill the entire screen with it - and have a very nice reading experience with the ability to appreciate the art.

Under control of the reader, yes, but what I mentioned is that most readers online are of a specific type. That Flash Gordon comic has far too much detail for the average online reader if the current selection of web-comics telltale anything (and they may have to double-take a couple of frames). On the screens I have here, it was too big and scaled down automatically. Let us not forget that web-comic artists tend to fit the craft into a load of other things going on in their lives.

Then again, I have seen web comics slowly gaining in detail (and depth) over the years. Perhaps, all they need is some more maturity (or, maybe, the readers do).